suppressed, and their property was confiscated.362 Little, however, did Spain gain by this. The nation was on their side 363 and as soon as the storm passed away, they were restored. In 1836, there was another political movement, and the liberals being at the head of affairs, Mendizabal secularized all the Church property, and deprived the clergy of nearly the whole of their enormous and ill-gotten wealth.364 He did not know how foolish it is to attack an institution, unless you can first lessen its influence. Overrating the power of legislation, he underrated the power of opinion. This, the result clearly showed. Within a very few years, the reaction began. In 1845, was enacted what was called the law of devolution, by which the first step was taken towards the re-endowment of the clergy.365 In 1851, their position was still further improved by the celebrated Concordat, in which the right of acquiring, as well as of possessing, was solemnly confirmed to them.366 With all this, the nation heartily concurred.367 Such, however, was the madness of the

362 Walton's Revolutions of Spain, London, 1837, vol. ii. p. 343.

363 Very shortly before the suppression of the monastic orders, "Le respect pour le froc en général est poussé si loin, qu'on lui attribue une vertue préservative, même au-delà de la vie, quelque peu régulière qu'elle ait été. Aussi n'y a-t-il rien de si commun que de voir les morts ensevelis en robe de moines, et conduits ainsi à leur dernière demeure à visage découvert." ... "De même que le froc accompagne les Espagnols au tombeau, de même il en saisit quelques-uns au sortir du berceau. Il n'est pas rare de rencontrer de petits moines de quatre à cinq ans polissonnant dans la Bourgoing, Tableau de l'Espagne, Paris, 1808, vol. ii. pp. 330, 331. 364 The confiscation took place at different periods between 1835 and 1841. Compare Ford's Spain, p. 48. Revelations of Spain by an English Resident, vol. i. p. 366. Costa y Borras, Iglesia en España, p. 95. Annuaire des Deux Mondes for 1850, Paris, 1851, p. 369. I have sought in vain for any detailed history of these transactions.

rue.

365 Dès 1845, une loi dite de dévolution, en attendant un règlement définitif, applique à la dotation du clergé une portion des biens ecclésiastiques non vendus." Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1851-2, Paris, 1852, p. 318. 366 Il y a ici un règlement solennel, sous la forme d'un traité, de toutes les affaires relatives à l'église; c'est le concordat de 1851. Le concordat reconnaît à l'église le droit d'acquérir et de posséder." Ibid., 1854, 1855, p. 273, Paris, 1855.

367 The very year in which the Concordat became law, Mr. Hoskins, the well-known traveller in Africa, a gentleman evidently of considerable intelligence, published, on his return from Spain, an account of that country. His work is valuable, as showing the state of public feeling just before the Concordat, and while the Spanish clergy were still suffering from the well

liberal party, that, only four years afterwards, when they for a moment obtained power, they forcibly annulled these arrangements, and revoked concessions which had been made to the Church, and which, unhappily for Spain, public opinion had ratified.368 The results might have been easily foreseen. In Aragon and in other parts of Spain, the people flew to arms; a Carlist insurrection broke out, and a cry ran through the country, that religion was in danger. 369 It is impossible to benefit such a nation as this. The reformers were, of course, overthrown, and by the autumn of 1856 their party was broken up. The political reaction now began, and advanced so rapidly, that, by the spring of 1857, the policy of the two preceding years was completely reversed. Those who idly thought that they could regenerate their country by laws, saw all their hopes confounded. A ministry was formed, whose measures were more in accordance with the national mind. In May 1857, Cortes assembled. The representatives of the people sanctioned the proceedings of the executive government, and, by their united authority, the worst provisions of the Concordat of 1851 were amply confirmed, the sale of Church property was forbidden, and all the limitations which

excess.

intentioned, but grossly injudicious acts of the liberal party. "We visited these churches on a Sunday, and were surprised to find them all crowded to The incomes of the clergy are greatly reduced, but their fortunes are gradually reviving." Hoskins' Spain, London, 1851, vol. i. p. 25. "The priests are slowly re-establishing their power in Spain." vol. ii. p. 201. "The crowded churches, and, notwithstanding the appropriation of their revenues, the absence of all appearance of any thing like poverty in the chapels and services, prove that the Spaniards are now as devout worshippers, and as zealous friends of the Church, as they were in her palmy days." vol. ii. p. 281.

369"La loi de désamortissement promulguée le 1er mai, 1855, ordonne, comme on sait, la mise en vente de tous les biens de main-morte, et en particulier des biens qui restent encore à l'église." Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1855, 1856, p. 310. See also Annuaire, 1854, 1855, p. 274. For an account of other steps taken against the Church in the spring and summer of 1855, see Costa y Borras, Observaciones sobre la Iglesia en España, Barcelona, 1857, pp. 119, 286, 292; and respecting the law of the 1st of May, see p. 247.

369Aussi le premier mot d'ordre de l'insurrection a été la défense de la religion." Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1854, 1855, p. 275.

had been set to the power of the bishops were at once removed.370

The reader will now be able to understand the real nature of Spanish civilization. He will see how, under the high-sounding names of loyalty and religion, lurk the deadly evils which those names have always concealed, but which it is the business of the historian to drag to light and expose. A blind spirit of reverence, taking the form of an unworthy and ignominious submission to the Crown and the Church, is the capital and essential vice of the Spanish people. It is their sole national vice, and it has sufficed to ruin them. From it all nations have grievously suffered, and many still suffer. But nowhere in Europe, has this principle been so long supreme as in Spain. Therefore, nowhere else in Europe are the consequences so manifest and so fatal. The idea of liberty is extinct, if, indeed, in the true sense of the word, it ever can be said to have existed. Outbreaks, no doubt, there have been, and will be; but they are bursts of lawlessness, rather than of liberty. In the most civilized countries, the tendency always is, to obey even unjust laws, but while obeying them, to insist on their repeal. This is because we perceive that it is better to remove grievances than to resist them. While we submit to the particular hardship, we assail the system from which the hardship flows. For a nation to take this view, requires a certain reach of mind, which, in the darker periods of European history, was unattainable. Hence we find, that, in the middle ages, though tumults were incessant, rebellions were rare. But, since the sixteenth century, local insurrections, provoked by immediate injustice, are diminishing, and are being superseded by revolutions, which strike at once at the source from whence the injustice proceeds. There can be no doubt that this change is beneficial; partly because it is always good to rise from effects to causes, and partly because revolutions being less frequent than insurrections, the

370 Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1856, 1857, pp. 315-317, 324-331, 336.

peace of society would be more rarely disturbed, if men confined themselves entirely to the larger remedy. At the same time, insurrections are generally wrong; revolutions are always right. An insurrection is too often. the mad and passionate effort of ignorant persons, who are impatient under some immediate injury, and never stop to investigate its remote and general causes. But a revolution, when it is the work of the nation itself, is a splendid and imposing spectacle, because to the moral quality of indignation produced by the presence of evil, it adds the intellectual qualities of foresight and combination; and, uniting in the same act some of the highest properties of our nature, it achieves a double purpose, not only punishing the oppressor, but also relieving the oppressed.

In Spain, however, there never has been a revolution, properly so called; there never has even been one grand national rebellion. The people, though often lawless, are never free. Among them, we find still preserved that peculiar taint of barbarism, which makes men prefer occasional disobedience to systematic liberty. Certain feelings there are of our common nature, which even their slavish loyalty cannot eradicate, and which, from time to time, urge them to resist injustice. Such instincts are happily the inalienable lot of humanity, which we cannot forfeit, if we would, and which are too often the last resource against the extravagancies of tyranny. And this is all that Spain now possesses. The Spaniards, therefore, resist, not because they are Spaniards, but because they are men. Still, even while they resist, they revere. While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they crouch before a system, of which the impost is the smallest evil. They smite the tax-gatherer, but fall prostrate at the feet of the contemptible prince for whom the tax-gatherer plies his craft. They will even revile the troublesome and importunate monk, or sometimes they will scoff at the sleek and arrogant priest; while such is their infatuation, that they would risk their lives in defence of that cruel Church, which has inflicted on

them hideous calamities, but to which they still cling, as if it were the dearest object of their affections.

Connected with these habits of mind, and in sooth forming part of them, we find a reverence for antiquity, and an inordinate tenacity of old opinions, old beliefs, and old habits, which remind us of those tropical civilizations which formerly flourished. Such prejudices were once universal even in Europe; but they began to die out in the sixteenth century, and are now, comparatively speaking, extinct, except in Spain, where they have always been welcomed. In that country, they retain their original force, and produce their natural results. By encouraging the notion, that all the truths most important to know are already known, they repress those aspirations, and dull that generous confidence in the future, without which nothing really great can be achieved. A people who regard the past with too wistful an eye, will never bestir themselves to help the onward progress; they will hardly believe that progress is possible. To them, antiquity is synonymous with wisdom, and every improvement is a dangerous innovation. In this state, Europe lingered for many centuries; in this state, Spain still lingers. Hence the Spaniards are remarkable for an inertness, a want of buoyancy, and an absence of hope, which, in our busy and enterprizing age, isolate them from the rest of the civilized world. Believing that little can be done, they are in no hurry to do it. Believing that the knowledge they have inherited, is far greater than any they can obtain, they wish to preserve their intellectual possessions whole and unimpaired; inasmuch as the least alteration in them might lessen their value. Content with what has been already bequeathed, they are excluded from that great European movement, which, first clearly perceptible in the sixteenth century, has ever since been steadily advancing, unsettling old opinions, destroying old follies, reforming and improving on every side, influencing even such barbarous countries as Russia and Turkey; but leaving Spain unscathed. While the human intellect has been making the most